This invention relates to an electronic timepiece capable of effecting a time setting operation when a battery is incorporated into the body of the timepiece for replacement.
There have been realized, for example, a variety of digital display type electronic timepieces adapted to count output signals from a reference oscillator such as a crystal oscillator so as to perform a time counting operation. Such digital display type electronic timepieces can be easily designed to obtain an accurate time counting operation. It is easy to provide a good electronic timepiece with such a high accuracy that an error can be restricted only to below .+-.10 seconds in terms of a month. No frequent time adjusting operation is required, unlike an ordinary mechanically driven timepiece. It will be sufficient, therefore, that a time correction is normally made in time units of seconds. The electronic timepiece uses a battery as a power source and an accurate time counting operation continues unless the battery loses its effective service life.
Therefore, a time adjustment in time units of "hours" and "minutes" (and in the case of an electronic timepiece with a date display section, a date adjustment), although not required in the normal time counting operation, is restricted to such cases where a continuous time counting operation is interrupted or the memory contents in a time counting section are erased. That is, such time adjustments are restricted to the case where a battery is removed from the body of the timepiece. Therefore, it will be sufficient that a time adjustment is effected when a new battery is incorporated into the body of the timepiece.
It is accordingly the object of this invention to provide a digital display type electronic timepiece which, only when a new battery is incorporated into the body of the timepiece, necessitates effecting a time adjustment by a switching means normally used for the control of a time counting function and inhibits an unnecessary time adjustment during other times.